Children of the After: The Complete Series

by Jeremy Laszlo

  Like his own room, much of the exterior wall here was missing, revealing a stout steel beam. Broken glass and other debris littered the floor, but even so, Jack carefully picked out a path through the room and collected one of Will’s toys from the floor. It was dusty and dirty, but otherwise no worse for wear, and brushing it off he revealed its shine. It was what his dad called a throwback toy, some sort of transforming robot that had been popular when Dad was a kid that had resurfaced and become popular again decades later. All that mattered was the fact that Will had loved the toy, and Jack could bring it to him to have when he woke up. Turning, Jack left Will’s room with an expectant grin.

  At the end of the hall was one more bedroom. Standing between them was the collapsed steel girder from above, but it appeared easy enough to circumvent. The only thing in Jack’s way was himself. The last time they had seen their father was just outside the vault and that thought combined with the fact that he had yet to stumble upon him, led Jack to fear that what remained of him might be in the bedroom beyond the door ahead. The thought was irrational. He knew it was more than unlikely just his imagination and fear, but he couldn’t shake the feeling. But after several moments he decided that there could be something worse than finding his father’s remains, and that would be Will finding them. Or no one ever knowing that their father was there. That too, Jack supposed, was a terrible thing. Closure would be better.

  Edging his way around the huge steel beam, Jack approached the door to his parents’ room and reached out for the knob. Giving it a quick turn he shoved the door inward but it barely budged, moving only an inch or two before stopping. As he shoved harder it gave way a couple more inches. Finally putting his shoulder to the door, Jack shoved hard with all his weight as the door and whatever lay behind it slid open with a grinding sound.

  Peering beyond, it was obvious that there was no reason to go any further. Past the door was a pile of rubble several feet thick that encompassed the whole of the room. Piled in heaps of broken construction materials-- wire, drywall and lumber from the floors above had completely collapsed down upon his parents’ room, obscuring everything beneath. If their father was there, they would never know it. Jack doubted there was any chance his parents were alive, especially after the view of the city beyond, but Will could still have hope. He deserved it. And Jack wasn’t about to be the one to take it away from him. Sam either, for that matter. She had said that she believed them dead, but Jack wasn’t certain she really meant it.

  Clutching the toy robot tighter, Jack turned and strode back the way he had come, cautiously picking his steps until he rounded the corner into what remained of the living room once again. From there he skirted what furniture remained before looking to the open doorway of the vault. Therein stood his younger sister with a beaming smile on her lips. She had been worried, he could tell, but her fears were now eased. He was glad for her and sad at the same time. Even though she felt better at his return, she would not feel better when he told her they needed to leave.

  * * * * *

  Samantha watched as Jack walked out of the vault, and witnessed as his expression and demeanor changed within seconds of looking out of the hole where the kitchen had once been. She needed to know what he had seen, so she waited until he left the room before sparing a glance back to assure herself that Will was still asleep, and stepped out into the apartment herself. What she saw there made her physically sick to her stomach. Had it not been more than half a day since she had eaten, she likely would have retched, but instead a knot formed in her stomach as tears fell freely from her eyes for what seemed like the millionth time that day.

  Out ahead where once the city’s skyline had been magnificent, especially at sunset, now remained only disfigured and crippled fixtures of wilted and twisted steel that reached to the heavens like the fingers of arthritic hands in prayer. Beneath them, the piles of ash and tinder that were once homes blended with the asphalt roads and parking lots. Like the night before, the day down below was nothing but empty blackness. In the months that they hid away in the vault, the world around them had burned. The scene reminded her of the book report she had done on Hiroshima at the beginning of the school year. She wondered if they were being poisoned by radiation this very moment.

  Hearing a sound from somewhere behind her, Sam returned to the vault after wiping away her tears. Finding Will still asleep, she returned to the doorway and waited patiently, listening for any sound that could mean that Jack was returning. She didn’t wait long.

  Maybe fifteen minutes after she returned to their shelter, Jack appeared once more, a gaudily colored robot toy in his clutches, and she couldn’t help but smile at his thoughtfulness. Before the event she had doubted that he cared about her or Will at all, he was so busy with track and his friends, but now she had no doubts. Beaming at him, she was again surprised as he pulled out a much needed and all too familiar item from his back pocket that caused the corners of her mouth to rise to the point they actually hurt.

  “You know you’re awesome right now, right?”

  “Right now?” Jack replied. “I’m always awesome, just you’re too dorky to see it.”

  “Whatever, you’re still the hero of my vanity, like for reals,” Sam said, taking on the best valley girl voice she could manage.

  “If you say so, dork. But you’re welcome.”

  “And I’m pretty. Tell me I’m pretty, Jack. Like you used to when I was little,” she mocked.

  “Pretty weird.”

  It felt good to joke as Sam began to pull the brush through the insane tangles in her hair. A good wash and conditioning would go a really long ways, but for now this would have to do.

  * * * * *

  Blinking the sleep from his eyes, Will rolled to his side to find himself in Sam’s bunk, with the open door of the vault straight across from him. As usual, Sam and Jack were whispering just outside the door. Rolling further towards the edge of the bunk, he stopped abruptly when something hard dug into his side. Reaching down he dislodged the hard angular object and pulled it free from his sheet and blanket. His heart leapt into his throat.

  Down to every detailed sticker he inspected the robot, his eyes and mouth wide in disbelief. Sam walked in, and then Jack too, but Will barely noticed as he turned the toy over and over in his hands. Bending the robots joints and posing him as if he’d just won a wrestling match with both arms up in the air, Sam’s giggle caught his attention as he looked up from his toy.

  Looking back at him, both Jack and Sam were smiling. Their eyes hinted at real happiness, something he hadn’t seen in a while, though they both faked it for him almost daily. No, today it was real. Will hoped there was more good news.

  “Hi, guys,” Will greeted his older siblings.

  “Hey, little man,” Jack responded. “I thought you might like that,” he added, gesturing to the toy.

  “Hey, Sam. You got your hair fixed!” Will almost shouted, having almost forgotten what she looked like with her long black hair when it was silky and smooth.

  “I sure did. You got your robot and I got a brush.”

  “What did you get, Jack?”

  It almost felt like Christmas, the change so drastic from the day before, he couldn’t help but feel giddy inside.

  “I got to see you and Sam smile, buddy. That’s enough for me.”

  “If you say so, Jack.”

  The change then was palpable, as Jack and Sam both came closer and sat to either side of him on the bunk. Their smiles faded to the fake ones he had become familiar with, and they both looked at him expectantly as if he would turn into a puppy at any minute.

  “Will, we have to leave the vault and the apartment,” Jack said

  “Are we going to look for Mom and Dad?” he asked after a moment of contemplation.

  “Not yet, buddy. We need to find a safer place to stay.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know, pal. I thought we might head out of the city. Maybe to Grandma’s.”

&n
bsp; “Grandma’s would be good, wouldn’t it, Will?” Sam asked.

  “OK. Can I take my robot?”

  “You sure can. And we need to scavenge whatever else we can too. Do you know what scavenge means?” Jack asked.

  “Like a scavenger hunt?”

  “Exactly,” Sam said with a real smile.

  “We’ll have to be careful. The house is a real mess, but we’ll get some clothes and whatever else we can find and look for a way outside.”

  “OK, Jack.”

  “But first we need to take what we can from here,” Jack concluded as he rose.

  Will watched as Jack reached out his hand and pulled Sam to her feet, before she turned around as well and helped him out of bed. He knew just what he wanted to take with him.

  Chapter Four

  While he and Sam moved about the confined vault, collecting what items they thought necessary, Jack found his mind wandering back to the scene of the devastated city outside. Everything had been burned, but by what? Had they been attacked by another country? Bombed? Could it have been a meteor or solar flare? Had something biological happened to the people and the city simply burned in their absence? They literally knew nothing of what had happened over the last six months or more. Nothing. The whole world was an unknown now, and the ‘what ifs’ were astounding.

  He didn’t know whether they would be able to find people, and if they did, if they could trust them. There was no way of knowing if this was an isolated incident or more widespread. Was the whole U.S. destroyed? The world? It was his job to keep Sam and Will safe, but he didn’t even know what safe meant anymore. They would have to be cautious. They couldn’t trust anything or anyone. Dad had always told him to make an effort to learn about something before making his own decisions, not to simply believe what he was told. Jack felt that more than ever, his dad’s words applied now.

  So absent mindedly going about his task, he paused a moment to look down into the pillowcase in his hands. Thus far he had collected a can opener, a pair of screwdrivers, a hammer, and a set of camping silverware for each of them, along with the other camping cooking supplies they had to include a frying pan and camp stove with half a bottle of propane. It wasn’t much, but would allow them to cook a meal if they found something to eat. Hunting would have been an option if Chicago’s gun laws hadn’t gotten so strict over the past years that it basically stripped guns from law abiding citizens, leaving only the criminals and police armed. The crime rate had gotten terrible back then, and that was when his dad had the vault built. If only their dad had been able to keep one of his guns. Jack had shot his dad’s rifle before and wished he had it now, but no such luck. They would have to scavenge for food until he came up with something better.

  Turning, he witnessed as Will stripped the pillowcase from his own pillow and stuffed his toy robot inside along with a deck of playing cards. It was amusing how different his own priorities were from his younger brother’s.

  “Hey, Sam, what did you find?” Jack asked across the security vault.

  “I got the first aid kit and a couple books of matches from old MREs. Toilet paper too, cause I’m not making the mistake of using leaves again,” she joked, referencing a camping trip two years ago when she got poison ivy all up her backside.

  “Didn’t like the nickname Scratchy, huh?”

  To this all three laughed, before turning more serious once more.

  “I think we should go get some clothes from our rooms and good shoes or boots too. If you can find a backpack or duffel bag, grab it too. That way we can free up our hands,” Jack instructed.

  “Sounds good. I’ll take Will to his room after I get my stuff. OK?” Sam inquired.

  “Yeah, that’s good. Let’s get moving, we don’t want to be out in the open at night, especially if another storm comes. After we get our stuff we are going to have to look for a way downstairs, our door and the fire escape are destroyed.”

  Both Sam and Will nodded their understanding, and all three stepped out into the apartment together.

  Leading the way, Jack paused as both Sam and Will ducked into Sam’s room, and he heard when she spotted her laptop and gasped excitedly. Shaking his head, knowing that it was unlikely the device still worked let alone not knowing if an internet even existed anymore, he retraced his steps back to the bathroom, assured that his siblings were safe.

  Entering the small room, Jack carefully pulled the medicine cabinet open as shards of the attached mirror rained down into the sink with a symphony of shattering glass. Once it was open he sifted through the contents and collected what he considered the necessities. A bottle of Tylenol, some cough drops, and most importantly, one of Will’s inhalers were added to his makeshift pack as he began pulling the drawers on the vanity open one by one.

  Digging through the contents of the drawers he added a pair of tweezers in case one of them got a splinter. He knew the simplest infection now could be fatal. Other than that, however, the only things he added were a pair of scissors, dental floss, and some unopened tooth brushes and tooth paste, along with a couple bars of antibacterial soap. Nothing more, nothing less.

  Leaving the bathroom behind, he witnessed as Sam and Will vanished into Will’s bedroom, nearest the one that used to belong to their parents. He was impressed. He had expected to have to remind them to hurry. Ducking into his own room, he regarded the devastation briefly once more before yanking the closet door open wide. Quickly selecting a pair of jeans and hiking boots, he changed his clothes and grabbed a handful of assorted garments before rummaging around on the shelf above his head. Finding last year’s backpack, he pulled the zipper open and stuffed in the clothes he had gathered inside, before dumping the contents of his pillow case in as well. Rising, he looked about once more at all the items in his closet and room that had meant so much to him before the event, but now they were just things he was discarding in order to keep his family alive. Stuff was no longer important.

  Turning towards the door, his heart stopped as a pair of blood curdling screams arose in the hall as the building began to shudder beneath him.

  * * * * *

  Guiding Will by the hand, Sam stepped into her room for the first time in what felt like an eternity. Here and there upon the walls were posters of her favorite punk bands and dub step icons. On the bed her laptop sat, still opened, just as she had left it when called to the living room by Dad so many months ago. She had been in the middle of writing Mom an email when it happened, but she couldn’t focus on the past now. Jack said they were leaving and needed to go. She couldn’t dwell on such things, and as such she scanned around her room once more.

  Dolls with X’d out eyes littered the floor, and dark makeup lay scattered about the carpet around her dresser in shades of crimson, purple, and black. They weren’t important nor vital, but just looking at the small containers, compacts, and vials made her feel more normal, and as such she kneeled for a brief second and collected a handful of beauty products for later use, which she deposited in her pocket.

  Turning her attention to her closet, she kicked off her more or less decorative wedge Nikes and pulled out a pair of more rugged looking leather knee boots. God, how she hoped they wouldn’t have to run. Unable to change with Will wandering about her room, she selected various garments from both her closet and dresser, depositing them on the bed before digging beneath it in search of a bag.

  It took just seconds to locate the black, single strap, backpack that was more an accessory than proper pack, but nonetheless, it was what she had. Looking more like a twisted version of a Raggedy Ann doll, she unzipped the black and white thing’s face and stuffed her clothes quite literally down its throat before zipping it closed once more.

  “Now listen, Will,” she said, gaining his attention. “You’re going to turn around like a little gentleman while I change really fast and then we can go get your stuff. Alright?”

  “OK,” he said, already turning his back.

  “No peeking either,” she added.<
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  “Eww, gross. Like I wanna see your big ole butt anyway.”

  Ignoring his insult, she stripped off her disgustingly soiled clothing and pulled on a pair of black leggings. Over her head she yanked a plain black form-fitting tee with parallel tears up both sides, before adding a zipper covered hoodie with a barbed wire pattern that crisscrossed all over it. Next she added a pair of jeans her mom called atrocious, due to all the tears and patches, before pulling on her knee-high boots and lacing them up. That done, she collected Will once more, and began pulling him into the hall behind her, veering once again through another doorway, this time into his room.

  “Listen here, pal,” Sam began, “We need to be quick so no digging through your toy boxes for half an hour. You get a couple small toys and I’ll get you some clothes. Got it?”

  “Yup,” Will replied, and grinning he spun and went to work, searching for the possessions he prized the most.

  Turning her attention to gathering his clothing, Sam went straight to his dresser and began pulling out articles that would be both comfortable and durable, consisting of mostly jeans and tees with a sweat suit for him to slip into now.

  “Here put these on,” she said, gaining his attention before holding them out to him.

  “You better not peek either,” Will said.

  “Duh.”

  It was a moment later when Will spoke again, the mischievousness more than evident in his voice.

  “OK, I’m done,” he said, barely containing a giggle.